Thoughts from the Road: Friars Handle Red Storm

This Thoughts from the Road is brought to you by nachos and pizza from Trinity Brewhouse and is fueled by the hospitality of the Smerkers and their insanely comfortable couch. 

• Before I get into my thoughts from the actual game against St. John’s, I want to share a text I got from my buddy Charlie: “I think the bandwagon is finally full for this team.” Chaz is right on with that thought. Downtown Providence was absolutely hopping on Saturday. Murphy’s filled up by noon and the wait for a table at Trinity approached an hour. When this season started, Providence vs. St. John’s on a Saturday afternoon of New Year’s weekend being a sellout was not something I would have expected. That’s exactly what happened. Ed Cooley told people he was going to light Providence on fire. If you haven’t gotten onboard, as Cooley suggested, you’re late.

• Now for the actual game thoughts. St. John’s is bad. Providence is good. It really is that simple of a #HotTake. The Friars came out a bit flat to start the game and were cold while settling for too many jumpers. The Red Storm were making shots at a high rate and that led to the early lead for Chris Mullin’s team. The catalyst for change was Kyron Cartwright. Cartwright was the first sub off the Providence bench, joined by Drew Edwards at the 13:42 mark of the first half. The Friars trailed 18-11 after some sloppy play by both teams. Cartwright got his hands on the ball late in a shot clock and buried a 3-pointer, just his third made triple of the season at the time. He followed that up with a streaking, coast-to-coast type drive up the court off a long rebound to finish with a floater in the lane. Cartwright was an absolute blur with the ball in his hands. His play got the semi-docile sellout crowd going. Even when he was a bit out of control, a miss off the backboard was flushed by Ben Bentil to cap off a 10-0 run that included 5 Cartwright points and gave Providence a 3-point lead at the 9:30 mark.
• The Friars would keep the momentum going and stretch their first half lead to as much as 14 before closing the first 20 minutes up 12. Rodney Bullock led all scorers with 11 first half points, but Dunn and Cartwright also chipped in 10 points apiece. That lead would grow to as much as 18 nearly 3 minutes into the second half and it may have led to the crowd being lackadaisical as the lead evaporated to as little as 6 with 9:32 remaining in the game. Dunn turned things on and would score 12 straight Providence points, 6 of them after the lead dwindled to 6. The lead would get to 11 after a pair of Bentil free throws and the Friars would never lead by less than double digits the rest of the game.
• Bentil didn’t have a great game going after dealing with foul trouble in the first half. He did pile up some points from the 6:06 mark and the 1:45 mark as Providence was opening up a lead that maxed out at 24 points. He also picked up a technical foul that was part of a double-technical called against Bentil and Duran Johnson. Bentil will need to have a better game against the much better front court of Marquette in Providence’s next game.
• Kris Dunn had a very strong game and came up big when he was needed. Dunn did have 5 turnovers, which was his third game this season with 5 or more giveaways. Limiting turnovers was one of two major areas that needed improvement for Dunn. The other was jump shooting, specifically from beyond the arc. On that count, Dunn was excellent. His 4 made 3-pointers were a season high for makes and he is now 8/12 in his last 3 games from downtown.
• Rodney Bullock’s 13 point, 8 rebound effort marked a second straight good outing in his second career Big East game. Bullock was awesome against Butler and he provided much-needed first half scoring and cleaned the glass in the second half.
• Jalen Lindsey took six field goals, all from 3-point range. He made two  to go along with 2 of 3 made free throws for 8 points in 26 minutes. He didn’t provide much else.
• Drew Edwards continues to get rotation minutes and he continues to play well. Edwards amassed 4 rebounds and 2 assists, while playing solid defense.
• A tweet went out from Jim Peters on Saturday that Ryan Fazekas should be back in action in a week or so. Peters is a writer that covered Fazekas in high school and indicated word was coming from Ryan’s dad. That will be a welcome thing for Ed Cooley to get another shooter on the floor. Fazekas has missed the last 6 games since being diagnosed with mono after the Rhode Island game on December 5th.
• One note on Chris Mullin and St. John’s: he doesn’t seem to do a lot of actual coaching during games. I have watched a few Red Storm games this season, but I never really paid close attention to St. John’s bench before this game. Mullin seemed to spend more time sitting than his assistants, who appeared to be the ones directing traffic. The Red Storm also took more bad shots in a 40 minute game than I’ve seen in some time. Mullin may have brought in some good recruiters and gotten some good commitments from highly rated players, but if this is how his teams will play on offense, they won’t be too fun to watch.
• Not sure who decided to “re-work” the Friar mascot costume, but that person must have had a few cocktails. Got a lot of funny responses when I posted side-by-side pictures on Twitter of the current mascot head and the previous one.

Re-watch the full game, courtesy of FriarTV: [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdxxWRcGuj4&sns=em]

Follow me on Twitter @pcbb1917

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Mike Hopkins

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